Italy in the Early Middle Ages: 476-1000

by Cristina La Rocca (Editor)

In this volume, ten leading international historians and archaeologists provide a fresh and dynamic picture of Italy's history from the end of the Roman Western Empire in 476 to the end of the tenth century. Recent archaeological findings, which have so greatly changed our perceptions and understanding of the period, have been fully integrated into the eleven thematic chapters, which provide a fully rounded overview of the entire Italian peninsula in the early middle ages. The chapters consider such themes as regional diversities, rural and urban landscapes, the organisation of public and private power, the role and structure of ecclesiastical institutions, the production of manuscripts, inscriptions, and private charters.

Genres: History, Italy, Nonfiction, Medieval

274 pages, Paperback

First published June 20, 2002

Reviews

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

In an effort to understand more of the historic development of Italy, I picked up this book from the local library. The book covers a wide range of time, from 476-1000, and each chapter is an essay covering a particular aspect of this period. The book is definitely not all inclusive, and it is not meant to be. The essays do give the reader a good sense of what is happening and how Italy is changing through the time period.

Overall, I found the essays to be well-written. Some of the essays are drier than others, making them more difficult to focus your attention upon. I like the idea of the subject specific essay though, allowing the reader to understand an aspect as a whole for a period before passing onto the next.

The book concentrates mostly on Northern and Central Italy. Southern Italy does not receive the same attention. From the text, I would gather that there is less material about the area available to study this period. Perhaps as more archaeological evidence is found and local histories are gathered, we can understand more about what happened in this area in this period (Note: the Byzantine Empire controlled the area for much of this period, as opposed to the Lombards, Goths and Carolingans farther to the north).

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone wanting to know more about this period. It is important to understand the transitions that a culture makes if you are going to understand why a land is how it is (and if that makes sense to you, good).

[Lauren Albert · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started out thinking this was a college text I realized quickly that assumed too much knowledge and was at the very least for advanced college students.
I also found it very dry.

[Marks54 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am reading this for background before a trip. It is a fine book comprising review essays from major historians of Italy in the period following the collapse of Roman order in the fifth and sixth centuries.

History, as done by historians, has gone through considerable change on the basis of boat societal norms about viewing the past and a near explosion of new methodologies for understanding the past making use of statistics, archaeology, historical genetics, and other developments.This has progressed to the point where much of what I learned in school, and I studied history, has been rendered in need of a serious update if not a total revamp. In terms of US history, the biggest example of revised thinking and research has been in the reevaluation of the role of slavery in American political and economic history, although there are lots of other examples.

There is not much of a “plot” to repeat in a book of survey review chapters. In recent years, I have come to think of histories of the “Middle Ages” as a bit strange, since the name for that period did not arise until a millennium after the time being studied and the whole area has been agglomerated into a box of sorts that can fit neatly between classical civilization and modern civilizations. I doubt the people living during this intermezzo of a millenium thought that they were just marking time until the Renaissance and modernity arrived.

Put another way, these essays are answers to the question of “How did we get from the fall of Rome and the invasion of the Lombards and Goths and such to some later time X?” For example, how did we get from Roman villas to medieval castles on hills? The story and its details are fascinating, although the style drags a bit. I often think that academics are paid by the syllable.

I liked the book, but it is not for everyone.

[Irene · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐️